Pokémon Diamond Version (Japanese: ポケットモンスターダイヤモンドPocket Monsters Diamond) and Pokémon Pearl Version (Japanese: ポケットモンスターパールPocket Monsters Pearl) are the first main series Pokémon RPGs released on the Nintendo DS, beginning Generation IV. The games were released in Japan on September 28, 2006 and in North America on April 22, 2007. They take place in the region of Sinnoh and the player's starting area is Twinleaf Town.

Contents

Plot

At the start, the player sees a newscast about a sighting of a redGyarados. They then head to their best friend's house and go to Lake Verity with him to see if there are any similar Pokémon living in it. Once there, two wild Starly attack. Nearby is a briefcase containing three Pokémon that the two choose from to fight off the Template:Type2. As is always the case, the player's best friend, who becomes the rival, takes the Pokémon that weakens the player's choice. The professor's assistant, who is the alternate-gender player character from the player, takes the remaining starter. After the Starly is defeated, the two return to Twinleaf Town with Professor Rowan's briefcase. Back in Twinleaf Town the player's mother gives him or her running shoes and then the player leaves for Sandgem Town to return the briefcase. After meeting Professor Rowan, he gives the player the Pokémon they chose to keep and a Pokédex.

During the course of the game, there are many conflicts with the evil Team Galactic and their leader, Cyrus. When the power of Dialga or Palkia (depending on the version), summoned by Cyrus, begins to overwhelm Sinnoh, Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf appear and negate the power flow, and the player must catch or defeat the legendary.

Connectivity

NSTC Pokémon Pearl DS card

Diamond and Pearl are compatible with the Game Boy Advance Pokémon RPGs after seeing the first 150 Pokémon in the Sinnoh Dex. The GBA cartridge is inserted into the GBA slot of the Nintendo DS, while Diamond or Pearl is in its DS card slot to upload Pokémon.

The player cannot transfer any of the Pokémon back to the GBA cartridge once they are transferred to their Diamond/Pearl copy; the transfer is permanent.

While a GBA game is in the DS, dual-slot mode activates and it becomes possible to capture Pokémon in the wild in Sinnoh that do not natively appear, though this may only happen after the National Dex is obtained.

The DS's native support for Wi-Fi is employed, allowing players to trade, battle and communicate using "voice chat" online.

Diamond and Pearl feature a global trading system, which allows trainers to search for any Pokémon they want, or put up one of their own Pokémon for trade for any Pokémon. Players of other games can search for the Pokémon that others have put onto the Global Trade Station.

Diamond and Pearl feature connectivity to Pokémon Ranger. By completing a special mission in Ranger, an Egg can be sent from Ranger to Diamond or Pearl, where it can be hatched into the legendary Pokémon, Manaphy.

Features

The day-night system first appearing in Generation II returns, with the same three time periods, but better transitioning between them. A new multifunction device called the Pokétch, short for Pokémon Watch, is also introduced. The regional Professor's name is Professor Rowan, after a tree like the others, and he allows the player and his or her rival to keep the starter Pokémon they used against attacking wild Pokémon at the beginning of the game.

A new battle system is used for Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. In this new battle system, attacks are declared either physical or special by how the attack itself operates, i.e. whether the attack touches the enemy or not, instead of the attack type, as was previously the case. For example, ThunderPunch is now physical and Hyper Beam turns into special. This was initially highly controversial with fans of the series, as it was considered to "waste" some of the Pokémon that were more powerful in Generation III, like Blaziken and Sceptile, though it now allows for a more versatile set of moves to be viable for these Pokémon.

Contests

In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, a significant amount of changes have been made to the Pokémon Contests introduced in Generation III, now known as Super Contests.

Instead of making Pokéblocks with berries, berry-flavored muffins called Poffin are made. This is done in Hearthome City, though not within the contest hall, instead it is done at the Poffin House, which is near the Pokémon Center in Hearthome. Using the DS's touchscreen, players must stir the Poffin as directed by arrows that appear.

The first round of the contests themselves is similar to the first round in Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, but instead of relying solely on contest stats, Pokémon must be dressed up using accessories with the stylus within a time limit. Each particular contest will require different accessories, and higher ranks may require more to be put on the Pokémon.

The second round is a dancing round, using buttons on the touch screen to either perform a dance that the others will find hard to mimic (if the player's Pokémon is the main dancer) or to copy the lead Pokémon's dance moves. Each Pokémon gets a turn at being the leader, and the leader must try to dance in time with the music, and so, obviously, so do the background dancers. The A, B, X, and Y buttons also work.

The third round is very similar to the appeals round in Generation III, and the main difference is that there are three judges and only four appeals, rather than one judge and five appeals. A Pokémon will get more points if it is the only Pokémon to perform for a particular judge, less if another one appeals for that judge and so on. The crowd system is still in place, but this time, each judge has a different meter, making it both potentially risky and potentially rewarding to appeal to a judge that all of the other Pokémon are appealing to. In addition, Pokémon will receive bonus points for appeals regardless of the impression on the judge, and points are not added simply for raising a judge's "voltage."

The following Pokémon are only obtainable in one game of this pair. In order to obtain Pokémon exclusive to the other game of this pair, they must be traded either from that game or from another compatible game of Generation IV which has that Pokémon available. Alternatively, all Pokémon released prior to these games may be migrated from a Generation III game.

Diamond and Pearl also maintain backwards compatibility with the Generation III games, however standard trading is not allowed. A player's Pokémon may be permanently transferred via Pal Park, and some Pokémon that could previously not be caught can be found using the dual-slot mode.

Reception

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were critically well received, with Nintendo Power calling them "the ultimate Pokémon experience." 1. The inclusion of Wi-fi features, and the voice chat feature were also praised 2. However, they where criticized for their somewhat basic graphics, with IGN commenting, "if you're looking for impressive visuals you're not going to get them." 3. Despite this, Diamond and Pearl received an average score of 85% on Metacritic the highest of any Pokémon game scored on the site to date.

According to Famitsu, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl sold 1,586,360 units in the four days after its release. On December 27, 2006, it was announced that the two games combined became the first Nintendo DS games to hit five million units shipped.[2] Additionally, in the fortnight ending December 31, 2006, the number of units sold passed four million, according to Famitsu, the first Nintendo DS game to do so.[3]

Sales of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl in Japan exceeded the five million mark in the 29th week of sales (April 9 - 15, 2007).[4] In the United States, over 533,000 pre-orders were taken before release[5], and one million copies were sold within five days. By the end of April 2007, the US release of Pokémon Diamond had sold approximately 1.045 million copies, and Pokémon Pearl had sold approximately 712 thousand copies.[6]

Trivia

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl contain many references to Internet memes and chatspeak. The lead translator, Nob Ogasawara, is a recent member of the Something Awful Forums, hence all the net lingo. There are also multiple references to the Something Awful website and community scattered throughout the game, such as one Pokémon trainer announcing "My Pokémon is Fight!". "Noob" is also used several times, "Owned" is said by a Galactic grunt and Buck, and ROFL is available as a speech option. Also, in the player's first encounter with Team Galactic, they tell Professor Rowan to "hand over his research so that they would refrain from causing massive damage to his assistant". The receptionist in the Team Galactic HQ and a Fisherman on Route 212 use the phrase "For the Win". Perhaps coincidentally, Twinleaf Town shares its Japanese name with that of the original *chan imageboard, 2chan.

Diamond and Pearl (and also Platinum) are also the first main series Pokémon games not to have their storage media colored, and the first games in which the lab of the region's Pokémon Professor is not in the player's hometown.

The Sinnoh region's starters are the first starter Pokémon which all gain a second type through evolution. Previously, two of Hoenn's starters had two types in their final forms, as did two of Kanto's, though one of Kanto's three had two types to begin with.

Diamond and Pearl are the first games where it is safe to trade between English and Japanese versions. An example is this is shown by the fact that Japanese Pokémon from the GTS do not harm foreign language versions, and in fact, several actually add their own foreign Pokédex entry when traded.

The leaders and Elite Four of Sinnoh don't always use Pokémon of their specialized type, mainly focusing on the use of moves that are of that type. However, this may have been due to a lack of varied types in the Sinnoh Pokédex. This problem was fixed in Platinum with an extension added to the Pokédex.

Diamond and Pearl are the second Pokémon games that require their saved data to be deleted before saving a new game, with the first being Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.